Project description:Fragaria vesca, a diploid woodland strawberry with a small and sequenced genome, is an excellent model for studying fruit development. The strawberry fruit is unique in that the edible flesh is actually enlarged receptacle tissue. The true fruit are the numerous dry achenes dotting the receptacleM-^Rs surface. Auxin produced from the achene is essential for the receptacle fruit set, a paradigm for studying crosstalk between hormone signaling and development. To investigate the molecular mechanism underlying strawberry fruit set, next-generation sequencing was employed to profile early-stage fruit development with five fruit tissue types and five developmental stages from floral anthesis to enlarged fruits. This two-dimensional data set provides a systems-level view of molecular events with precise spatial and temporal resolution.
Project description:Secondary cell wall thickening (SCW) has a significant effect in the growth and development of plants, as well as in the resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. It is regulated by a multilevel transcriptional regulatory network, in which VASCULAR-RELATED NAC-DOMAINs (VNDs) act as key regulators. Lignin is an important component of SCW, it has a cooperative regulation with the biosynthesis of flavonoids which also originate from phenylpropanoid pathway. However, there are few studies on SCW thickening and flavonoid biosynthesis in flesh fruits. We want to investigate the role of FvVNDs on cell wall and fruit color development in Fragaria vesca.
